


These Are Days

by VoluptuousPanic



Category: Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Beverley is such a mom, Deassimilation, Ex-Borg, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Mentors, Reclamation Project, Recovery, Rehabilitation, So is Geordi, The Artifact, The Borg, Work, associates, reclamation, star fleet, xBs (Star Trek)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:13:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24331132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VoluptuousPanic/pseuds/VoluptuousPanic
Summary: Character study process pieces from the intervening years between STNG Descent and the Artifact. Some for now. Some for later. No narrative arc. All Hugh. All the time.
Relationships: Hugh | Third of Five/Original Character(s)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 17





	1. Research Post E-2 - Subspace Messaging

“Geordi, what is it?” Beverly asked. “Is everything okay?”

“I’m okay. I’m good, actually.” Geordi’s posture loosed then, and Beverly realized that Geordi was concerned about something, worried, but not on edge. “But there’s something, Bev,” he continued. “This transmission came through on subspace messaging earlier today. It’s from Mike Paulos. She was a warrant officer on the _Victory_ , but she’s the Master Chief out at the E-2 post now. This took a day or so to come in. Listen and tell me what you think.” 

_La Forge, we’ve got a wild one here this morning. You know out here weird shit turns up all the time, but it’s not every day that a busted up light freighter radios to request a tow in and top off and medical assistance from a research outpost. No alarm bells. I get a little crew in a shuttle to do a tractor tow and we get out there and see some of the craziest god-damned engineering mods I have ever seen. I mean, we’ve always heard rumors of weirdos out here on the edge running cores without containment and shit, but there’s nothing like that going on. They had containment, and massive power, jury-rigged from…just stuff, almost literal nuts and bolts. Like this tub could scoot if they had any juice left. Technology scavenged like I’d never seen, even some stuff I think should still be classed as exo-tech. Stuff didn’t even make sense when we scanned them. I thought of you immediately, man. I was like, Geordi has got to see this, and that was before I knew it had your name written all over it. But anyway, we get out to this little boat and hail them, I mean it’s not like they can’t see were there, and then they transmit an asylum request with Federation protocols. Like all the bells and whistles. So I’m a mechanic, not a diplomat, but as the ranking officer I had to get out and do the thing when I was just excited to do a tow and look at how this ship is patched together._

_We were reading five active humanoid life signs and three more than showed up as in stasis, so I requested a view to see who and what we were dealing with. And this is the wildest shit, man. The view comes online, and we’ve got Borg, man. It’s a busted boat full of a bunch of busted Borg kids. I mean, not kids, but they’re young and look like a crew of scared, lost cadets who’ve been half assimilated. Mendez, you remember her, she nearly lost her shit right there and was like “blow ‘em up,” but I just couldn’t. Maybe it’s the mom in me, Geordi. I don’t know. But there was this skinny, big-eyed kid—I mean, he only had one eye—in all this broken tech, asking for help. And I just couldn’t push the button. I mean, they’d already asked for asylum, so I couldn’t, but I just kept thinking about everything we can’t do for people all the time, and my heart broke a little. For a boatload of Borg strays. I mean, we’ve been hearing about them for a while, trickling out of Delta, and…_

The transmission was a punch to the gut. “It’s Hugh, isn’t it, Geordi?”

“Yeah, it is,” Geordi sighed in that way only he could. Beverly could hear his worry. “But I don’t want get my hopes up. They’re in good hands with Mike for the time being, but Hugh’s in bad shape. They all are. There’s more.”

_…We get over there and reel them in with the tractor and radioed back to conn to tell them what was up so they could bring out the welcoming committee and the big guns in case the kids were shitting us and this whole bank of drones was coming to fuck us up. I don’t know what it was, but they passed the sniff test. One look at those kids… But we towed them in and docked them on the outer ring and Captain Ranaj and the XO and Doc Fripp and a whole security detail came out to the airlocks. We should have brought them all the way into one of the bays, but we didn’t really have any way of knowing. This kid, he met us at the hatch, and he’s just this little pale bald-headed slip of a thing in a torn shirt. He’s got this gnarly tactical prosthetic arm and one big eye and the other is this wound where it looks like tech has been torn out of his face and head. And he gives us the kind of lopsided smile that breaks your heart and he says “I am Hugh,” asks for you, and then keels over right there. It’s the damnedest thing, Geordi._

Beverly met Geordi’s eyes over the engineering display and watched him nod slowly as the message played on. The list of things that could be done were short, and she felt herself enumerating them silently, indistinctly, with a mother’s worry as she listened, hand to her mouth, and eyes brimming. 

_So, we get onto this little tub and these kids are ripe, and hungry, scared, and they’ve all been butchered. Like tech and implants have just been pulled out of them, by god knows who. Or maybe they’re doing it the best they can as stuff breaks down. They’re all half in and half out of exo-plating. It’s almost like they were stripping themselves down for parts. But their conn had crazy mods, tech they’d built. Or grown. Hugh and one of the other boys can’t even eat. They still have to charge up. This kid D who’d been running helm was jacked straight into nav. He’s got no hands or eyes, Geordi, and had to walk me and Doc through disconnecting him. The connections were some of the most simple and elegant shit I have ever seen as an engineer. I don’t want to think about what these kids have been through, but they’re looking out for each other. They’re scared, and they’re…sweet. And they’re waiting for Hugh to come back around to talk. It breaks my heart. There’s not a whole lot that’s clear about this, except that no one’s coming for them. They’re not linked. There’s no collective, and they’ve all got names. There’s a girl, Heti, and three other boys and I don’t know what in stasis, but I don’t think they’re going to make it. Hugh seems like he might be the oldest of them, and he can’t be more than eighteen. He’s so little. Always thought Borg would be big bastards, you know? But we’re out here with Fagan’s gang in our med bay. They’ve all been fed and plugged in and cleaned up and patched up as best we can. We put them to bed for the night under round the clock watch and the Doc is with them today._

_So that’s why I’m calling, Geordi. I did some digging and found some reference to eyes-only docs about Borg contact with the _Enterprise_ , so I thought I’d give you a little ringy ding. This kid Hugh seems to be the real deal. I wanted to give you the heads up on this little issue in case it catches you unawares, because Federation Command will probably come calling soon and there’s an Admiral and a big med team and some other mucky mucks en route to our little research shack out here to deal with the asylum process. You should know what you’re dealing with too if you know these kids and want to get involved. I’d appreciate you getting back to me too if you can provide any insight because this Hugh kid is out cold and the others aren’t saying much. If you can get a relay you might be able to get me in real time._

“Geordi, are you planning a little trip?” Beverly asked. It was the only solution. She would make some inquiries today. Find out who at Medical Command was handling the envoy, and why the news hadn’t filtered to the _Enterprise_. E-2 wasn’t tactically important: a small research outpost on the edge of the quadrant used primarily for engineering and development of botanical and agricultural terraforming processes, but as Master Chief Mike Paulos had said, it wasn’t every day that the cat dragged in eight Borg piloting a heavily modified freighter, entirely severed from the collective. 

“I think I am. The question is are you?” Geordi asked, one eyebrow cocked, though there was no humor in his face.

Beverly sighed, breathing out apprehension. The worry that was left was usually reserved for Wesley, for Geordi, for Data. And for Jean-Luc. Every time the rumor of more de-assimilated Borg limping out of the Delta quadrant began circulating again, Beverly thought of Hugh. It had been a two years since the _Enterprise_ had left behind Lore’s wreckage, and more than a year since Ivor Prime and the near disaster of _Enterprise-D_. Getting away on short notice for an unscheduled jaunt across the quadrant would be complicated. But she was haunted by the memory of Hugh’s innocence and the immensity of responsibility he now faced, the experiences he would now have to navigate, if he lived. Helping Hugh with anything she could do was a moral imperative. 

Two days later in the mess, Geordi sidled up to Beverly next to the bank of replicators. “Do you have news about our boy?” she asked.

“Bev, I’m glad I didn’t wake you when Mike’s message came through because we’d have both been up all night. Mike sent through some more details that I’ll send on to you, so you can have a good, long think on this before we both start pulling strings.” Geordi steered her toward a high table, out of earshot from the other earlybirds. “It’s definitely Hugh,” he continued. “And he’s awake, and he’s asking all the right questions. Mike keeps saying he’s just a kid, but he’s not a kid anymore. And she’s right about reclamation. They’re removing implants with a great deal more skill and care than Lore and they’re selling off their own parts, but calling it grisly is a compliment. They’re not not the run, but they might as well be. And Hugh’s little crew aren’t the only ones. Another little freighter and a salvaged Federation shuttle that tracked back to Wolf 359 came in yesterday. E-2 is up to twenty-eight Borg, or xBs as they’re calling themselves, and they’re all with Hugh. They’re not just from Lore’s little butcher shop. I think this might be bigger than anything we can help with in the short term. Hugh came armed with Federation case law on asylum and species recognition. He’s been out there, reading.”


	2. Research Post E-2 - Subspace Communication

The transmission came through on low priority subspace relay with blocking and lag, but it was Hugh. Hugh, no longer ashen, but pale and frail and smiling suddenly, shyly as the view came through on his end. Mike ventured a wave from behind, then stepped away, likely equally out of respect as the need to not overload the stream with additional data. 

“Hi, Geordi. Hi, Beverly,” Hugh said clearly with a brilliant grin that flashed for only a second after a brief moment of silence and what looked, to Beverly, like elation. The grin drew one cheek up into a dimple and the other into a pull of clean scar tissue that webbed the smooth, sunken ocular orbit where Hugh’s eyepiece had been removed. The connection points remained above his brow and at his temple and cheekbone and were likely knit through the bone to link with the cortical node Beverly knew crowded his left brain. Hugh’s scalp was scarred too, but less noticeably, white chinks in the close-cropped cap of dark hair that flocked his head like black velvet. 

“How are you, Hugh?” Geordi asked. He was doing a better job of managing his feelings, but Beverly could see his wonder and disbelief. And Hugh’s.

“Your eyes, Geordi…” 

“Cool, huh?” Geordi asked facetiously with the pleased self-assurance that Beverly knew was vanity. Stifling a sniffle, she smacked Geordi’s arm. Geordi swatted her hand away with a smile and redirected. “We’re here for you, Hugh. How are you?”

Beverly was undone immediately as Hugh began to speak, his tone sure and measured, but still full of the same guilelessness that he’d exhibited in her lab years before. In some respects, he seemed even younger than the boy he’d been then, all expression centering from his single big, dark eye and flickering smile. His ravaged face was beautiful. 

“We—I am well. My friends are well. My friends who were in stasis…we’ll know more soon after they regenerate. Everything is…” Hugh searched for a word and brought his right hand—obviously a new synth prosthesis, still in the process of integrating to organic tissue—up to stroke over his head as he considered. Under the standard grey Federation issue undershirt, his left arm was covered in a pressure garment. “Trial and error?” He nodded, as if to himself. “There is new science and we are test subjects. The science is new to the Federation, but is new to us only in the way it is administered.” He shrugged. “But almost everyone has been kind, like you.” 

Beverly could finally speak. “That is wonderful, Hugh.”

“Why are you crying, Beverly?” he asked with the same look of wonder in the moments on the Enterprise where his journey had begun. His sweetness was overwhelming. She felt Geordi squeeze her hand tightly.

“Because I am so happy to see you. Sometimes emotions are overwhelming.”

“And cognitive responses are in conflict?” he asked, offering a small smile of understanding. “I am happy to see you, too.” 

“Tell us what is happening.”

“Tests. Similar to the tests that you performed. Many tests. Cognitive, neurological, genetic, visual acuity, physical examination.” He shrugged, and Beverly wondered where, how, he’d learned to inhabit himself with so much dignity in such a short time. He continued, and spoke candidly with no shame. “There is a desire to learn everything, and we are willing to comply. Now it is our duty if we wish to be free. Even if something is uncomfortable for me, the outcome may help my friends. The remainder of my exo-plating that I was unable to remove without assistance has been removed. I have many dermal grafts. That is…difficult, but they will heal soon. I have new abdominal ports until I am able to eat normally. That is…inefficient, but necessary. For this observation period, I am attempting to transition to scheduled sleep and curtail regeneration.” He nodded, as if agreeing with his own assessment. “I enjoy preparing to sleep,” he added. He looked down with a slow blink. 

“I never thought I would hear you say so many words at once, Hugh,” Geordi said.

“I have many thoughts. And no one can hear them. I would like to see you, Geordi.”

“We would like to see you, too, Hugh. But right now it’s not possible.”

“You are very far away. In the Dramian Sector. There is an orbiting aurora. It is beautiful. Such observation was irrelevant in the Collective.” 

“We will be sure to see it. We are here to observe and to reestablish contact with Dramia I. The Federation hasn’t been here in a century. …Beverly would like to speak to you.”

Beverly squeezed Geordi’s hand in thanks. “Tell us more about about what is happening. We are trying to understand, to see if there is any way that we can help you and your friends.”

“We are in small groups, like in the Collective. But we are organized…cognitively. I am with my friends D and Heti and Porl and Koshl. They were binary pairs. And I remain only one. There is a woman who comes to speak with us daily. She is called Ono. I like her hair. She brings a dog who often sits with me. I do not understand, but I find the dog’s presence soothing. I feel that many treat us like children, but we are not. Ono does not treat us like children.” 

Beverly sighed with a wave of relief at the mention of Dr. Sopul’s name. “Hugh, I know Ono. Or I know of her. I know her work. She used to work with children who were once soldiers and children who have experienced very bad things: war, famine, genocide.”

“Assimilation?” 

“I assume so. Yes. Do you feel comfortable with her?”

Hugh nodded. “She is…She is easy to speak with. But she is difficult to understand. She does not allow us to know her. Our conversations together are highly organized, and I find myself learning more about myself and my friends than we learn about Ono. The experience is imbalanced, but is…not unpleasant.”

“This is normal, Hugh. She is maintaining clinical distance in a therapeutic environment. Tell me about about your new hand. Let us see.”

Hugh’s face lit with a smile again. He presented his hand, palm first, and then the back. The new synthetic skin was still opalescent like Data’s, but Beverly could see that the tissue was merging well on Hugh’s forearm. The skin on the hand would settle last and permanently, almost wholly organic, as the microconnections and neurotech were the most complicated, and furthest from the heart. He slid his sleeve up his right arm, exposing pale skin and a system of black biosilicon implant interfaces that segmented his arm. “I no longer have a data access port, or the assimilation apparatus,” Hugh explained. “I am working with Dr. Voigt to define the purpose of many of the enhancements. He is of the opinion that the genome interacts with assimilation nanites to determine drone specialization as assimilation progresses. And I am of the opinion that my specialization within the Collective had not yet been determined because the assimilatory modifications to my organic systems beyond energy exchange, immune, and neurological systems, are primarily musculoskeletal. There has been little effect on cardiovascular or generative systems. Dr. Voigt is positing that my underlying genetic structure is human, but we disagree as to its importance. I am…Borg.” 

Hugh paused and flexed his hand again. “The disengagement of various neurological and system inhibitors is…challenging. I have also learned that I appear to be experiencing puberty, and many aspects of that development are confusing and unpleasant, but I understand that experience is not unique.” 

Geordi laughed. “It’s confusing and unpleasant for everyone, Hugh.”

Hugh shrugged and looked away with a what appeared to be a blush. Beverly registered a ghost of a smile that she silently acknowledged as humor. 

“Verbal communication is insufficient,” Hugh said. He passed a hand over his hair again. “And inefficient. Relationships are complicated. I am…” he paused as if searching for another word. “I am happy that my friends and I are able to remain together, and that we may engage freely with the other cohorts. They are from other vessels and are organized differently, yet they look to me for direction. But I still do not wish to lead and have no direction to provide. I understand that I am perceived as a mature adult, yet I am treated as if I am a child, and am experiencing immune responses and physiological changes associated with childhood and early adolescence. I wish to sleep and wake at my own discretion. I wish to eat, and to learn to care for myself, and learn my own likes and dislikes. I wish to determine my own fate.”


	3. In the Life - Unimatrix Zero / San Francisco

_“Your eyes are beautiful. You’re…pretty.”_

_“What…what color are they?”_

_“As dark as night, ja’lat. Like your hair.” The first touch came then, a possessive stroke. Hugh trembled._

_“What is your name?” Hugh managed, though he wished to tell the youth with whom he spoke that he, too, was beautiful. He was tall, slender and lightly built, with pale golden hair, blue eyes, and features so clear and sharp it was as if they’d been cut with the blade of a knife. In contrast, his mouth was soft and lush, and Hugh could not look away when he spoke. He was Bajoran, and his voice, like Hugh’s was still reedy. Neither was yet a man, though it mattered little in this ephemeral meeting place, and even less outside in the horrors of their waking world._

_“I have no name. My designation is Six of Ten.”_

_“And you are located in the Omnicomplex. My designation is Third of Five. I am Hugh.”_

_“I know who you are, tem’en, and I wish to thank you.” Six pressed his body to Hugh’s and the first of many kisses to Hugh’s willing mouth._

_Guided by instinct, curiosity, and the erotics of opportunity, Hugh surrendered. Six was experienced, adept, accommodating, and generous._

“Wake up, tem’en. It’s morning. We have to go.” 

Six’s voice was as bleary as Hugh’s vision when at last he could open his eye against the harsh morning light of the bedroom where they’d found themselves in the house Icheb shared in Oakland. They wore last night’s clothes, and with a wave of nausea, Hugh recalled how they’d come to be there and what had, and hadn’t, happened. Eighteen hours spent together in San Francisco with Seven and Icheb. And Six. First meetings all around at Icheb’s Star Fleet Academy graduation. In some respects, they were guests of honor, in most, curiosities met with passively hostile attention. But they had been together, the four of them. And later only two, Hugh and Six curled together and nearly canoodling on the stairs of a twentieth century house, chattering with intoxicated animation until the kiss that was left hanging between them. The first real kiss that began hungrily but ended abruptly with Six pressing his lips to Hugh’s scarred eyebrow with the tender, but painful rebuff of “we can’t.” 

_“But I loved you,” Hugh whispered, as if it would make a difference._

_Six sat upright again, forearms on knees. “I love you still. But I loved everyone, Hugh. I fucked everyone. I still fuck everyone. Everyone fucked me. I was everyone’s first in Zero. It wasn’t personal. Sex was currency before and in the Collective. It kept me fed in the camps. Drone chasers kept me fed later. And you. I love you. Hugh, I will love you forever. I want you so much, but don’t let’s muddy the waters. We need too much of each other in other ways. I need a brother, not a lover. I can get sex anywhere.” He looked back over his shoulder at Hugh. “So could you.”_

_Until Six, sex was important and involved feelings that Hugh chose not to examine. Rejection was a wound not unlike the removal of deactivated enhancements. A profound lack that replaced space previously taken up by something wholly inessential but deeply integrated. “What’s going to happen?” Hugh asked, still uncertain how to proceed with this interaction that clearly wasn’t ending._

_“We’re going to sober up, get some sleep…wherever we are. Does Icheb even live here? And we’ll each get taxi transport back where we came from, and I’ll see you in a month at Daystrom after I make yet another subject appearance in Tokyo to talk about trauma and mental health in forcibly displaced populations. I’ll probably find someone to fuck there too. But I hear you’re getting a new eye.”_

_Hugh stroked Six’s cheek with resigned agreement. “And I hear that soon no one will be able to see what you were.”_

_“On the outside at least. That’s the desired effect. You could, too, you know. We’re still young, and you’re still very pretty.”_

_Hugh shook his head. Six’s pursuit of cosmetic perfection confused him. “What will you do after?” he asked._

_Six shrugged. “Go back to Bajor, I guess. Put on the d’ja pagh and homespun. Keep looking for any family who survived the occupation, help with recovery…from two occupations.”_

_“This doesn’t sound like you.”_

_“But we don’t know each other, really, Hugh. We never did.” Six kissed Hugh’s forehead again. “What is there for me? Out there?”_

_“There is what we are, Six. I thought that’s why we were all here, for Icheb. You speak of recovery from the Cardassian and Dominion occupations of Bajor. Before assimilation, you were sold as a child by your own people. For food. What of your own recovery? Ours?” Hugh felt Six’s hand link with his again, Six’s fingers slide between his. “This is what we have. Here, and out there.”_

_“This sounds like you. What’s next? Rights and representation?”_

_“Why not?”_

Across three rows of seating and over the din of the lecture hall, Hugh saw Six, tall and striking and golden. The first time since those hours in San Francisco and a melancholy day together on the beach in Okinawa. Hugh had kept up with Six and his development into a controversial thought leader in Reclamation Psychology, and they had exchanged extensive friendly, but highly impersonal, subspace message transmissions and research as Hugh’s work propelled him from critical theory into the unlikely place of figurehead for Reclamation Advocacy. But he and Six hadn’t spoken directly over the intervening decade, and Hugh would freely admit to actively avoiding it. Hugh was content to sit quietly, actively avoiding interaction with anyone as he read over his notes for the moderated discussion scheduled later in the evening. He’d just managed to ease back into academic headspace when he felt the warmth of Six’s gaze. 

Hugh looked up to find Six politely excusing himself from conversation to move toward him, easily and gracefully climbing over one row of seating after another rather than using the aisle. Six stopped and Hugh stood. They regarded each other for a moment, mutually appraising features and bodies readying for the encroachment of middle age that Hugh had never expected to see. Hugh felt haggard from travel, overly casual in his customary unremarkable black in contrast to Six’s academic formal. Then Hugh was startled by the speed at which Six, heedless of onlookers and other attendants, crushed him into a hug that enveloped his whole body.


	4. In the Life - Utopia Planitia

“So…what’s going on with you and Norken Six?” Geordi asked, his tone leading. He gestured for Hugh to elaborate.

Hugh shrugged and smiled, looking across the table at Geordi, over to Geordi’s partner Marcus, and back to Geordi again. He knew that the question would come eventually, but never expected that it would happen within ten minutes of arriving to Geordi’s and Marcus’ home in the planetside habitat zone of Utopia Planitia. Hugh paused, a little too long, for a sip from the cup of jasmine tea he was grateful Marcus had made, considered the pink Martian sky, then delivered the truth with a laugh. “Absolutely nothing.” 

“You have never in your life lied. Do not start with me now,” Geordi admonished, pointing at Hugh with a cheese knife from where he stood at the small sideboard. 

“Geordi,” Hugh said gently. “It’s true. There was something, once, a long time ago and too complicated to explain to anyone who isn’t xB. Six and I are…intimate, but not in that way. It’s like you—”

“And Data?” Geordi offered.

Hugh nodded and ran a hand through his hair. He’d been too busy for a haircut. 

“You seem…happy, Hugh,” Marcus added. “We though there might be something.”

“No, nothing like that. Just, things are falling into place right now. For once, what I’m doing isn’t an uphill battle.”

“Are you going to take the assignment with the Reclamation Project?” Geordi asked.

Hugh nodded. “I am. Six is already there. I don’t think either of us could do it without the other. But right now we’re both needed out there.”

“I can’t believe you’re going back to a cube.”

Hugh sighed. “I get a window. But not a sky like this one.” He found himself thinking he should take as much advantage of this visit as possible. To enjoy being a guest, to let Geordi and Marcus fuss over him like the son they didn’t have, to let nothing be expected of him. To eat gluttonously and stay up far too late, playing cards or simply talking. To not work. 

“It’s only taken you a year to decide,” Geordi said as he returned to the table with a small tray of things that would begin Hugh’s project of gluttonous consumption.

“Three,” Hugh admitted quietly, winning a head tilt of disapproval from Geordi as he reached for a slice of apple. A year of not-quite-casual mentions at conferences and scheduled conversations. A second year of ignoring formal requests to consider delivered from both Federation and Romulan parties with almost alarming deference. A third of Six’s gentle cajoling, both personal and professional, after Six had given in and begun to make arrangements to travel to the Neutral Zone. It took Heti’s insistence, her simple plea: do it for D. Gentle D, who spent his last years joyfully teaching Star Fleet cadets and reasearchers how to supercharge propulsion technology with Borg modifications, but who never recovered from Lore’s experiments. D who ultimately succumbed to a decade of deteriorating Borg systems attempting to repair themselves in spite of well-executed attempts to correct the damage caused by Lore’s butchery. 

Hugh had never felt more purpose. Perhaps there was a place with the Reclamation Project for Heti, too.


End file.
